


one single note

by Mellow_Yellow



Series: Notes [4]
Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 19:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17607431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellow_Yellow/pseuds/Mellow_Yellow
Summary: for an anon on Tumblr who asked for Ben meeting Rosie for this first time. this is kind of that, at least at the end.





	one single note

**Author's Note:**

> if you share this in any way with any of these dudes in IRL I will find you and I will murder you just let me have my dumb weird hobby okay?

*

 

The first contraction hit at a stop light as Jon drove him and Ben back home from toddler yoga, a ridiculous class Tommy flat-out refused to attend and which Jon also didn’t enjoy all that much but continued to drag Ben to every Sunday out of stubbornness, and because Ben looked beyond adorable in baby yoga pants.

“Fun class today, right honey?” Jon asked Ben, twisting in his seat to glance back as the light turned green and he prepared to press down the gas.

“Okay,” Ben said distractedly, staring at a dog crossing the street with borderline unnerving concentration.

“You watching the dog?” Jon asked inanely, because of course he was watching the dog. Something about having a kid made you powerless to refrain from giving a running report on every object and shape around you. “You see him over there?”

“Yep.” Ben popped his ‘p’ at the end, which Job was pretty sure he had picked up from Tommy.

“Yeah, he seems like a good—” but before he could finish his crucially important final word in his observation (“dog”), he was hit with a cramp so sudden he felt like he was about to vomit. 

He groaned, trying to bite it back so he wouldn’t scare Ben, but he didn’t have too much success.

Jon’s ears were ringing as the cramp rolled through his belly and down into his pelvis, seeming to radiate through his hips and down his legs. 

“Daddy?” Ben asked tremulously from the back seat.

“I’m okay, buddy,” Jon said on a gasp.

Slowly, it eased, and Jon straightened again in the driver’s seat, hands shaking as he put them back on the wheel.

“Nope,” he said firmly to no one, shaking his head. “ _Nope_. This is not happening.”

He was  _not_  about to go into labor in the damn car again. 

“Not happening,” Ben mumbled, parroting anxiously. 

“Exactly,” Jon told him firmly and prepared to accelerate.

Before he could do that, a truck rear-ended them, sending their car sliding into the intersection.

it wasn't too great an impact but it still sent Jon jerking forward with a yell, grunting as his chest connected with the steering column. He heard Ben yelp like a cat and then go silent as the car lost momentum and stopped. 

“Ben?” he yelled, panicked, throwing the car into park. He twisted around to see in the back and his belly ached sharply, again, but he did his best to ignore it. “Baby? Baby, are you okay?” 

Ben was wide-eyed and red-faced, little mouth open in shocked terror, tears pouring from his eyes. 

Jon himself started crying a little, scrambling to throw off his seatbelt. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” he babbled, struggling to get out of the damn car, “hold on baby, it’s okay.”

He threw the door open and wobbled when his feet hit the ground, another contraction forcing him to lean forward, half-contorted as all of his abdominal muscles seized. 

“Fuck!” he hissed, bent over. 

Someone touched him on the shoulder.

“Man, are you okay?”

Jon glanced up into the tanned, shaggy-haired visage of the man who had presumably just rear-ended Jon and his child. 

“Don’t touch me,” he gasped out, smacking his hand away. “Move.” 

With effort, he straightened and shoved past car accident guy to yank open Ben’s door. 

Ben was sobbing loudly now. “Daddy,” he wailed, possibly the loudest he’d cried since he was a baby. 

Jon set about detangling Ben from his car seat, a headache creeping its way deep into his temples. “Sh, shhh,” he hummed, scooping him up and into his arms. “Does anything hurt? What hurts?” He ran his hands over Ben’s head and face and little body and didn’t immediately feel anything and Ben didn’t flinch, just continued to weep, distressed and scared. “It’s okay, buddy.”

Jon turned, and car accident guy was hovering nearby, looking concerned. 

“Is he okay?” The guy smiled at Ben. “Hey, little man.”

“What the  _fuck_ ,” Jon hissed, cupping the back of Ben’s head protectively where he’d buried his face into Jon’s neck. “You piece of shit, there’s a baby in the car.” He gestured frantically at his belly with a free hand. “One and a half babies!”

“Look, man, what had happened was, you were stopped in front of me and then I didn’t stop in time so I hit you,” the guy said in an agonizingly slow California drawl. 

Briefly, Jon’s brain went white with rage before coming back online. “Did you just – I know! I know that’s what happened, I was there! You hit  _me_! I understand the mechanics of getting rear-ended, you—” Another cramp hit, making Jon’s knees buckle. “Fuck!”

“Bad word,” Ben mumbled thickly into Jon’s neck.

“Don’t you start,” Jon told him, strained. He groaned as the muscles in his stomach revolted again. " _Christ_."

Car accident guy moseyed closer, eyebrows drawn tight with concern. “Hey man, are you in labor?”

“No,” Jon said lowly, shaking his head. “I am  _not_. Shut up.”

“Should I take you to the hospital?”  
  
“We are not getting into any car with you, not ever,” Jon snapped. “Shit.” Fuck, that was a bad one. 

“You’re having contractions though.”  
  
“Oh, you’re a doctor now? You’re a pregnancy doctor? Is that right?”

“No, I’m an actor, but I know what contractions look like,” the guy said, slowly, cautiously, which Jon could at least give him credit for. He personally felt capable of leaping and taking out his throat, so it spoke well for car accident guy that he recognized the very real lethal danger he was in. 

“I’m fine.” Slowly, Jon straightened, still clutching Ben to his chest. “I’m  _fine_ ,” he repeated, mostly to himself.

“You shouldn’t be driving either,” car accident guy insisted, stubborn. “Is there at least someone I can call for you?”

“Technically, yes,” Jon said grudgingly. Did he want to call that person right now? No, for a multitude of reasons, mostly dumb, but in particular because Jon had a sinking feeling he was about to lose an argument him and Tommy had been having on and off for the past three weeks about how Jon shouldn’t drive anymore since he was so close to his due date.

In fact, that very morning he’d hissed at Tommy, “I’m fine to drive, you can’t just keep me cooped up in here like a kidnapping victim, I have rights. I’m taking the car.”

Deeply unimpressed, Tommy had crossed his arms. “Asking you to please take precautions for the health of both you and our unborn child does not make me a captor.”

“I’m not due for another three weeks,” Jon hedged.

Tommy had raised his eyebrows. “You know that’s just an estimate.” 

“Then why is it called a due date, Tommy, and not an estimate-date?”

“Those shills at Big Pregnancy know their branding,” Tommy had said, ignoring Jon’s eye roll. He had stepped in, putting both big hands on Jon’s shoulders and peering soulfully into his eyes. “If you promise to text me when you get there and when you’re heading back, then fine. This is last time though, okay?" 

“You could always come with to baby yoga,” Jon pointed out.

Tommy winced. “Oh, man. Oh – that is just. That is just very, very tempting. So tempting. Oh – damn, the game is on though, and I promised Favs he could watch it here. Emily’s out of town, you know. He gets so lonely. He’s a lonely guy, Lovett.” 

He’d smiled at Jon’s huff, bent down to kiss him once, then twice, then a third time that was mostly Jon’s fault because third trimester hormones were no fucking joke and all he wanted to do was walk Tommy into a wall and force him to jerk Jon off until he came two or three times. Damn baby yoga. 

And now – 

“Seriously man, are you okay?” 

Before he could snap at the guy that, no he was fucking  _not okay_ , he’d just been in a fucking  _car accident,_  another cramp hit, bending him over like someone had one hand between his shoulder blades and the other under his knees and was folding him in half.

“Alright, I’m taking you to the hospital,” car accident guy said decisively. “Just put the kid back in and get in the passenger seat and I’ll take you.”

He was very pushy, in a very Tommy-esque way that Jon found reluctantly appealing.

Fuck, Tommy. He was going to be so insufferable after this.

Jon panted, braced against the hood of the car until the contraction finally lessened. He looked down at Ben, who had pulled back from Jon’s hold slightly to look up. 

“You might have to give me a hand up here in a minute,” Jon told him. “How good are you at catching an infant?” 

Ben watched him in silence, eyes round like an owl. “Daddy,” he whispered. 

“Dude, I’m serious,” car accident guy said, butting in, and Jon rolled his eyes. 

“Shit, fine.” The edges of his vision were starting to go a little gray. He wasn’t panicking yet, but it definitely felt like it was on the menu. There was no way he could drive like this, and it would take too long for Tommy to come get them. “Okay. Don’t crash my car.” 

“I’m a good driver usually,” car accident guy insisted. “Do you need help with him?” 

Jon didn’t want to let Ben go ever, especially not to some stranger, but he was becoming increasingly worried he might drop him.

“Put him back in his car seat,” Jon whispered, and to Ben, “Here, go with the man.” He began peeling Ben’s fingers away from his t-shirt. “Go with the nice man who can’t drive so he can take us to the hospital.” 

Car accident guy rolled his eyes, holding out his arms for Ben. “Dude, I feel like you need to let that go for now.”

“Don’t tell me what I need to let go.” Ben was resisting, clinging to Jon’s side with his skinny legs. “Honey, you have to go to the man, he’s going to put you in your car seat.” 

“Daddy, no,” Ben whined, but finally let Jon put him into car accident guy’s arms. 

It felt odd to climb into the passenger seat, but his head was aching and he felt like he was going to barf and after car accident guy successfully strapped Ben in with a surprisingly deft touch, Jon was barely holding it together.

Car accident guy got in the front seat and adjusted the seat for his longer legs. “Ready to rock and roll?” 

“Oh  _god_ ,” Jon muttered, feeling closer to throwing up now than before. “Just go. Cedars-Sinai. I need to call my—I need to call Tommy.”

“Call Tommy,” the guy said easily, putting the car into gear. “I’m River, by the way.”

“Of course you are,” Jon groaned and pulled out his phone. 

He rubbed his belly, contraction aftershocks rippling sharply beneath his skin, while the phone rang. “Come on, Vietor.”

“Hey, baby,” Tommy answered on the fifth ring, so chipper and sunny it made Jon ache. “You guys on your way back?”

“Um.” Jon swallowed. “We...are not exactly doing that.”

“Jon?”

Jon inhaled and said all in one breath, “We were in a car accident.”

“What?” In the background, there was the sound of Tommy knocking over what sounded like an entire table full of dishes. “Shit!” 

Jon sat up straighter in his seat. “Tommy, are you okay?” 

“I’m fine—a car accident? Lovett,  _what_ —”

Jon swallowed, thick. “We were in a car accident, and now we’re going to the hospital.”

“ _What_?” Now Jon could hear Tommy stumbling around, rifling for something. There was the jangle of keys. “Jonathan, where are you? Are you okay? Is Ben okay?”

“We’re fine, Ben’s fine, I’m fine. We just got rear-ended, it wasn’t a big deal.”

Tommy made a loud, aggravated sound. “Fuck!” Another stumbling sound. Jon heard Tommy grumble, “Fucking—toys everywhere.” Before Jon could interject, Tommy asked, sharply, “Then why are you going to the hospital?”

Hand on his belly, Jon winced. “Because I also am in labor right now.” 

“ _What_?!” Tommy sounded on the edge of hysteria. 

Jon winced harder. “Yeah, I admit, the timing’s not great.” 

“Jesus christ.” Tommy inhaled audibly. “Honey, just—where are you?” 

“We’re on our way to the hospital. Car accident guy is driving us, actually.” He turned to River, who was unabashedly eavesdropping. “Say hello, River.”

“Hello, River,” River said cheerily.

Jon gave him a look. “Don’t try to be cute.” To Tommy, he said, “Can you meet us there?”

“Yes. Yes, definitely.” On his end, Tommy must have put the phone to his chest to holler, “Favreau! Favreau, Favs, get in here, we have to go, Jon’s in labor.”

Distantly, Jon heard Favs yelp, “What?” and then Jon drifted, his stomach cramping again.

“Fuck,” he muttered when it finally grudgingly receded, and when he opened his eyes he could feel River watching him in concern. In his ear, Tommy was murmuring, “Breathe, breathe, in through your nose, you’ve got this, you’re doing great.”

“This still sucks a lot,” Jon said on a tired exhale. "I had forgotten how much, somehow."

“I know.” Tommy sounded frazzled, and Jon could hear Favs in the background. “I know, baby, I know, but we’re on our way. I’ll be there with you so soon.”

He stayed on the phone the entire ride, murmuring nonsense to Jon about how well he was breathing, which he’d managed without much recognition or praise for thirty years up until this point but everything felt very difficult and involved right now, so he would take it.

The drive was a blur. His contractions were already so close together, he didn’t understand how things were already moving so fast. Had he not noticed the signs earlier? He’d had heartburn the night before, and a headache this morning, but it had felt like normal third-trimester stuff. He’d refused to believe it was anything more.

“We’re here,” River said as they pulled in. He put the car in park and reached for Jon’s seatbelt until Jon smacked him away

“Just—just get my son,” he said, breathing labored. “I’ll get myself out.”

River looked skeptical but he did as Jon asked, leaving Jon to painstakingly unhook his seatbelt, shove the door open and wobble side-saddle so he could climb on the pavement. Fuck, why was the car so much higher than he remembered suddenly? 

As Jon was just contemplating hopping down and also the consequences of missing his footing and tumbling onto the pavement, there was a screech of tires behind them. 

Tommy’s voice rang out, bossy and so, so dear. “Are you the guy that rear-ended my fiancé and my kid?” 

Jon heard River sputter. Before he could properly defend himself, Jon looked and saw Tommy stride over to snatch Ben from his hands. 

“Give me him,” he snapped. His eyes darted around like he thought Jon was hiding. “Lovett? Lovett, where—oh!” He stepped around the door, Ben on his hip, eyes hungry on Jon’s face. “There you are.”

“Yes, here I am, now can you please help me out of this stupid car?” Jon felt too dizzy to truly bask in the single-minded possessiveness in Tommy’s eyes right now. He felt like he was going to barf everywhere.

Tommy handed Ben off smoothly to Favs and clasped Jon firmly on both arms, him and his show-off biceps easing Jon down like he weighed nothing at all.

Still, he wobbled when both feet were on dry land, and Tommy had to grab him to steady.

River stood uneasily nearby, watching Jon in concern but clearly too cowed by Tommy to step in. 

Jon was quickly feeling terrified, the sharp pain in his belly making his heart race in more like this was different than just normal labor, but he still caught River’s eye. 

He meant to tell him something more sincere, thank him for taking them to the hospital and saving them hundreds of bucks on a dumb ambulance when he really, really didn’t need to do that. Stupidly, he wanted to blurt out that he was scared and out of control and for at least a little bit, River had managed to make him feel safer when Tommy couldn’t be there. He wanted to thank this stranger, who had been both an accident and a blessing in such a weird, unexpected way. 

What he ended up saying was, “Don’t leave here without leaving your insurance information.” He winced at what a dick he sounded like, but River just grinned affably.

“Of course I’m going to stick around. I love hospital coffee, plus I need to meet my honorary niece.”

He reached out to pay Jon jovially on the shoulder and Tommy stopped him immediately by grabbing hard to his wrist. “Step away,” he said lowly, every vein in his neck standing out.

“Okay, stand down,” Jon said, tugging Tommy away. To River, he managed a thin, pained, “Thanks.” And then he was being ushered away, flanked by Tommy and Favs and in a lesser capacity, Ben. 

Before he really realized it, he was in a wheelchair and being whisked away and hooked up to a monitor. Luckily things seemed slow for early on a Sunday. 

Favs took Ben to the waiting room and Tommy and Jon waited in the hallway for a bed to open up, and for the doctor on duty to check his vitals.

Jon’s heart was pounding so, so hard. He felt like he had vertigo.

“Tommy, something’s wrong,” Jon whispered. He was holding his belly like he could touch the baby through his skin. He didn’t want her to be afraid. He hoped she wasn’t hurting, not like he was. Underneath his ribs on his right side was throbbing.

Beside him, the doctor leaned in so he was more on Jon’s level, which Jon appreciated even though normally he would have found it felt slightly patronizing.

“So your blood pressure is high. I don’t want to give it time to get any higher. For your safety, and for the baby’s, I’d like to get things moving as quickly as possible. I don’t want to wait on nature to take its course here.”

Jon nodded, his vision blurring with tears and from his headache. He pressed his lips together so they wouldn’t wobble. Obviously, he had prepared himself for a C-section, but everything felt like it was happening too fast. He thought of the scar he still had from the last one. He thought of how long it took until he could stand up from a chair in one movement or sit up in bed. It felt weak to admit but he was suddenly viscerally afraid of the pain. 

“Okay,” he whispered.

The doctor straightened. “Okay,” he echoed. “Sit tight. I’ll be back soon, and the nurses will get you ready.” He left and Jon watched his retreating back, wanting him to come back and stop everything in its place.

He felt Tommy rubbing gently at his back.

“Don’t cry,” Tommy pleaded, “come on, Jon, please don’t cry.”

That at least it made him stop gazing forlornly after the doctor and instead Jon turned to frown at Tommy. “I’m not  _crying_ ,” he snapped, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Shut up. I’m fine.” He mopped miserably at his face with both hands and didn’t struggle when Tommy took gentle hold of his wrists and brought them down to his lap so he could dry Jon’s face with his sleeve.

“Okay.” Tommy’s was low and smooth. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

“I just thought this time would be less scary and it’s not,” Jon admitted, choking out the words like a sob. “It’s way scarier, I’m really scared.”

Tommy knelt down and took Jon’s face in both hands. “I know you are, but you’re going to be fine. This is all going to be fine. You’re going in there, and you’re going to have this baby, and she’s going to meet Ben and we’re going to go home as a family and it’s all going to be okay. I’ll be with you for all of it.” 

He sounded so certain, his eyes intense and focused wholly on Jon. Jon could feel his hands trembling where they were holding his face, but he did him the courtesy of not mentioning it, instead trying to breathe in deeply through his nose and letting Tommy’s steady prediction calm his nerve.

“You’re right. It’s going to be so fine. Easy, even.” His voice was still shaking, tears not totally abated, but it helped to distract him, his headache receding just barely.

“Totally,” Tommy agreed, and then two nurses came bustling over to transfer him from the wheelchair into a gurney, Tommy releasing his hold on his head to stand close by and clutch Jon’s hand.

Jon inhaled deep, let it out, and squeezed Tommy’s hand so he could look at Jon, and Jon smiled, feeling momentarily, blessedly—if not calm, at least ready.

“Easy,” he repeated, with the blithe confidence of a moron desperately trying to convince himself of something stupid. “No big deal.” 

They took him away, bearing his gurney down the hallway.

 

*

 

It was not easy in any sense of the word. For the rest of their lives together, Tommy would never fully stop giving Jon shit for that.

 

*

 

The silence of the hospital room practically rang in Jon’s ears after the organized chaos of the OR, but it mostly faded to the back. He was distracted. 

“You didn’t have to be so dramatic about it all,” Jon told the baby, who was blinking slowly, wrinkled and disheveled and looking around at the world like it was the morning after and she was still a little drunk. “We had a whole birth plan thing going. You couldn’t wait for the birth plan?” 

Jon watched her yawn in what he could swear was a lofty manner. Evidently not.

In the chair by Jon’s bed, he heard Tommy inhale shakily.

Jon nodded in Tommy’s direction, smiling both conspiratorially and loopily down at the baby. “Can you believe that guy? He was scared. I was never scared. Not me. I was almost  _too_  calm.” 

He let the baby grab hold his thumb, everything achey but also very far away. His waist was tingling uncomfortably so he focused on looking at his kid, at the dark cap of hair on her head, her sharp outraged brow, her dark eyes glaring up at him muzzily. 

Tommy tugged his chair in closer so he could put his elbows on the bed. He took Jon’s elbow in both of his hands. “Jon,” he said, choked, and pressed his face into his arm.

Jon let him, drifting, with the baby a snug weight in his opposite arm, watching her fight against a desperate need to conk out. He could relate.

“What is it with you and cars?” Tommy asked weakly after several deep wet inhales against Jon’s hospital gown. 

Jon, who had settled into the hazy comfort of Tommy’s warm hands on him and a sleepy baby in his arms, sat up a little. “What does  _that_  mean?” 

“Can we not have one normal pregnancy? Just one?”

“I'm sorry, 'we?' When were  _you_  getting your stomach sliced open? And are you seriously scolding me right now?” Jon gritted his teeth. “As you consider your answer carefully, recall that I just recently worked to expel your spawn, Vietor.” 

Tommy opened then closed his mouth. “I may have mistimed the joke there,” he said gingerly.

“You’re goddamn right you mistimed.” In Jon’s arm, the baby stirred. “Shhh, little girl. We’re not fighting. We never fight.” 

Tommy leaned up on his elbows to gaze at her. “Look at that scowl.”

“She’s not scowling,” Jon told him, unaccountably offended on the baby’s behalf. “She’s just – somber.” The baby grunted adorably and furrowed her brow even further. She was definitely scowling. He heard Tommy snort in soft laughter and glared at him. “Stop it. She’s not scowling.”

Reaching across Jon’s body, Tommy ran a finger tenderly down the baby’s snub nose. “Cranky baby,” he crooned. He smiled up at Jon, almost blinding, in a way that made Jon feel almost panicked in response. Tommy looked so happy. God, Jon hoped he could keep them all this happy. “She’s so great. I love her so much.” 

Jon nodded, distracted as he too admired her. “What are we going to call her, though? All of our ideas are stupid, and I still think a good strong proper noun will make her sound modern and cool.” He tilted his head to the side. “Manhattan. Kansas. Pacific Northwest. Wichita.” He had started off mostly joking, but Wichita was actually kind of badass. “How about River?” 

Tommy chuckled and pressed a kiss to his cheek, then his neck, then leaned over to kiss the baby on the forehead, who did not stir. 

“Rosalyn. After your grandma.” He said it as though they’d already agreed on it months ago instead of getting more and more tangled up in more and more ridiculous options. Jon didn’t even know Tommy knew his grandma’s name. 

Inexplicably, Jon felt himself tear up. “Yeah,” he managed. “That’s the one.” He looked down at the baby, at Rosalyn. “Hey there. You’re Rosalyn.”

It was kind of amazing, watching a name settle on a brand new human person like a perfectly fitted shirt. Like she had always been Rosalyn, even as a nameless faceless fetus making Jon crave mayonnaise and Snapple for months on end. 

“You know what I thought,” Tommy mused aloud as they watched Rosalyn doze on, “I had actually been thinking that the second time around would probably be pretty tame compared to last time. Like, how could you possibly top the sheer adrenaline filled terror of Ben’s birth? I didn’t think it was possible.”

Jon snorted. “That was pretty dumb of you.”

“I know. What a fool.” He let his forehead rest against Jon’s shoulder. Jon felt like he had earned the right to be the most exhausted person in the room, but looking at Tommy’s gaunt face, he could concede that Tommy was a very close second.

He took his hand from where it was tracing Roslyn’s eyebrow and put it in Tommy’s hair, gently combing through the strands, and listened to Tommy sigh.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Jon said quietly. “I’m sorry.” 

Tommy huffed a laugh, sitting back to look Jon in the eye. “You genuinely can’t help yourself. I’ve made my peace with that.”

Plucking at Tommy’s sleeve, Jon pressed on, “I’m sorry I forced you to have another baby out of wedlock.” He tried to sound teasing with it, because since they decided to postpone the wedding until after the baby it had been something they joked about occasionally, shotgun weddings and bastard children and living in sin, most of the time they were both good-natured about it and it really wasn't too big of a deal. They were going to get married, they had the rings, just...not yet. 

Jon was too tired to play it off right though and instead he just sounded plaintive. 

For a long moment, Tommy just looked at him, smiling absently. “Jon, I’ve never done anything with you because you forced me.”

“I mean, I don’t think that’s completely true.” 

“How many times have I been to baby yoga? Zero. How many times have you tried to force me to come with? A million.”

“A million seems high,” Jon grumbled.

“Half the time I feel like I’m forcing  _you_  into stuff.” Tommy tugged on the ring on Jon’s left hand. Like marriage, Tommy didn’t say. Jon thought of the months Tommy had been furtively scurrying around, planning a wedding that was secretly turning into a Category 5 Vietor Overkill Event, then putting it off when Jon found out and freaked out about standing at an altar with a big pregnant shotgun belly in front of him. 

It had been a bit of a blowout at the time, but had essentially ended with Tommy feverishly, tenderly fucking the daylights out of Jon, whispering borderline insane things about how Jon could never leave him, he couldn’t do anything without him there, please just stay, stay forever.

It was a good memory. Jon felt flushed even thinking about it, through the haze of diminishing spinal anesthesia.

But the point was—Tommy had backed down, when Jon had asked him to. Like he didn’t want to push and risk shoving Jon away. So maybe it was Jon’s turn to push. 

He caught Tommy’s hand and tangled their fingers together. “You’re not forcing me into anything either.”

Before Tommy could make some annoying, handsome rueful expression, Jon darted forward and kissed him, hard and close-mouthed, because he was sure his mouth tasted like garbage but he couldn’t help himself.

“And I promise that as soon as my body isn’t a wrecked husk of its former glory, I’m dragging you down the aisle, Vietor. There’s no escape. You’re mine. You’re not getting away, not ever.”

He watched in delight as Tommy flushed, his breath getting visibly shorter. 

Jon smirked. “Stop getting turned on in front of our infant.”

Tommy rolled his eyes, still blushing, and pressed their cheeks together like they were love interests in a black and white movie. “God, Lovett. You fuck me up.”

“Language,” Jon said primly, but he pressed their faces close together one more time before pulling away to collapse more fully against the pillow. He was beat as shit. 

They gazed at Rosalyn in mute fascination for five or ten or five hundred minutes, Tommy occasionally pressing an absent kiss to Jon’s shoulder, Jon smoothing the slight cowlick of Rosalyn’s hair from her forehead. 

The door opened, and Jon and Tommy turned to see Favs in the doorway with Ben on his hip.

“Someone couldn’t wait any longer to meet his new sister,” Favs said, rubbing Ben’s hair where his head rested on Favs’ shoulder. Favs eyes welled up. “God, she’s beautiful. Just  _look_  at her.” 

“Get it together, Favreau,” Jon told him. 

“Shut it,” Favs said, laughing. In his arms, Ben watched Jon owlishly, hand tangled in Favs’ shirt.

“Daddy,” he said sleepily.

Jon smiled wide, unable to temper it at all. “There’s my other baby.” 

Favs set him down and came to sit in the chair beside Tommy to stare in rapt fascination at Rosalyn. After a moment, he spared a look for Jon.

“You okay, man? You had us worried.”

Jon smiled gamely. “Well, turns out this kid loves to make an entrance. Can’t deny that kind of star power.” He yawned wide, his jaw cracking. “I’d kill you for a Big Mac right now. Full-on murder.”

“I’ll see if Emily can pick it up, her flight just landed. She’s on her way.” He patted Tommy on the shoulder. “God, you guys. I’m so happy for you. Lovett, you did so great.” 

“You weren’t even there,” Jon groused, still preening slightly at the praise.

“You did, though. I saw.” Tommy winked.

As Jon rolled his eyes, pleased nonetheless, Ben sidled over and put his hand on Tommy’s knee. He looked up at Jon sideways, suddenly shy.

Jon patted the bed next to his hip. “Come here, buddy. Come on up. Meet Rosalyn.”

“You want to see the baby, honey?” Tommy asked Ben.

Ben blinked at him. “I’m the baby,” he said, like he was telling Tommy something obvious. 

“You sure are, buddy,” Tommy laughed and palmed Ben’s head. “Now there’s just another baby, too. A littler baby.”

Ben narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Another?”

“Come see,” Jon urged him. He looked down at Rosalyn snuggled in the crook of his elbow. She was still out cold, tiny pink mouth moving minutely with every puff of breath. 

Ben made his way slowly around Tommy so he could haul himself up next to Jon. Jon lifted an arm so he could cuddle in, Tommy sitting obligingly back to make room.

“I missed you.” Jon pressed his lips to Ben’s soft curly head. “It’s only been like a couple hours and I missed you so much. My little car adventure partner.”

“No more adventures,” Tommy said darkly. “Adventure time is  _over_. Forever”

Spiritually, Jon rolled his eyes. Physically he was too exhausted, and settled for smiling tiredly at Tommy. “Hush.” He propped up Rosalyn so Ben could see her better. “Ben, this is Rosalyn. This is your sister.”

Ben looked skeptical, but obedient little thing that he was nonetheless leaned in to get a better look at the baby.

He frowned, eyes locked on the baby’s sleeping face. 

He reached out with one small hand. 

“Careful,” Tommy blurted out.

Jon gave him a look. “What’s he gonna do, sock her in the chin?” He smiled at Ben. “She’s sleepy, so we just have to be gentle like when the cat is sleeping.” Maybe it wasn’t the best analogy, because Ben loved nothing so much as waking up a sleeping pet, but he still slowed down, until the tip of his finger touched her cheek. 

“Can you say Rosalyn?” Jon sounded it out a little slower. “That’s her name. That’s your sister.”

Ben mulled it over. He kept his finger on the baby’s cheek, giving a tiny absent tap every few moments. “Rosie,” he said finally, definitively, like he’d considered Rosalyn and had decided  _no thank you._

Jon blinked and looked down at the baby. Like she was morphing before his eyes, she suddenly looked far more like a Rosie than she ever did a Rosalyn.

Tommy hummed. “Wow.” He looked at Jon. “Lovett, he’s right.”

Jon shook his head, marveling. “I know it.” He kissed Ben’s forehead. “Yep, that’s Rosie. Your sister, Rosie.”

Just then her mouth began to work, eyes still closed but body flexing against her wrap like she was struggling valiantly against some terrible, invisible, baby-sized evil.

As they watched, silent in anticipation, Rosie’s eyes slitted open so she could peer at all of them irritably.

“Hi Rosie,” Ben told her, in what might have been a heartbreakingly tender moment if the baby didn’t begin to cry, quickly working into a wail impressive for its volume and fast-building ferocity.

Ben reared back in alarm. “Daddy,” he muttered, leaning into Tommy’s arms. 

“She’s just hungry, buddy,” he assured him, although Tommy sounded just as caught off guard.

“She’s  _loud_ ,” Ben said, like he was tattling. He turned so Tommy could pick him up completely, as though saving him.

“She’s just got a lot to say,” Jon told him, getting ready to call for the nurse for some backup. He kissed Rosie’s soft head. “Let it out, little girl. Tell us what you got.”

And she did. She never stopped, and Jon wouldn't have it any other way.

 

 *

 

**Author's Note:**

> for reference, this part of the series takes place during this like side-plot of married-related angst I never fully wrote. however, I did once write like a general outline of how they get married in this verse (like there's angst because lovett gets pregnant and then tommy is worried they won't ever get married as a result, etc) but I can't find the dang ask I wrote it in response to, it's possible it's in female-presenting nipple hell with all the other purged posts. alternatively, if you have the link, go ahead and holler at me.
> 
>  
> 
> [turmblur](https://ohjafeeljadefinitelyfeel.tumblr.com)


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